The rain is fierce, it flogs the earth, And man’s in danger. O that my mother at my birth Had borne a stranger! The flooded ground is all around. The depth uncommon. How blest I’d be if only she Had borne a salmon.

If still denied the solar glow ‘T were bliss ecstatic To be amphibious–but O, To be aquatic! We’re worms, men say, o’ the dust, and they That faith are firm of. O, then, be just: show me some dust To be a worm of.

The pines are chanting overhead A psalm uncheering. It’s O, to have been for ages dead And hard of hearing! Restore, ye Pow’rs, the last bright hours The dial reckoned; ‘Twas in the time of Egypt’s prime– Rameses II.